CB, are you going to stain the cedar? i built a cedar pergola last year, i treated it with Thompson water sealer, but need to stain it this year..... The fresh look of cedar is amazing eh? not to mention how your driveway my smell right now, with all that fresh cut cedar right above the garage door .

Thompson sells a sealer with a stain... The Thompson product makes the water bead up and roll off of the wood, like a carnauba wax on a car. Pretty amazing..

Ummm question. If you planned on staining it, why did you use water seal first? All that beading will now apply to your staining efforts as well. Hopefully, the Thompsons has mostly worn off but I'd bet there will be patches where it makes things difficult for you.

Edit: I took out my negative statements on Thompsons products as they were not helpful.

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With great power comes Awesome irresponsibility.

Oh, that's because I wasn't making a joke. Seriously, a wash with TSP and a really thorough rinse may help from allowing the remaining Thompson's film to interfere with the application/absorption of the stain.

i built a cedar pergola last year, i treated it with Thompson water sealer, but need to stain it this year.....

Ken, I think the point is that stain needs to sink into the wood to work correctly. If dakkon put Thompson's Water Seal on the wood last year, the stain won't absorb into the wood this year the way it should.

The TSP might be a way of removing the Thompson's so the stain can absorb into the wood!